


bide (abiding)

by myystic (neoinean)



Category: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Genre: Angst, Closeted Characters, Cowboys, Families of Choice, Masturbation, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-19
Updated: 2009-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 16:31:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neoinean/pseuds/myystic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only Butch Cassidy would keep himself up nights thinking about whether or not it was possible to think about not-thinking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bide (abiding)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calicokat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calicokat/gifts).



He can't sleep.

Doesn't know why, what with living the past week or so on maybe three hours' sleep a night. Between that and all the hard riding they've been putting in, past two days especially, he figures he should've been out practically before his head hit the pillow -- double special, since this is the first night out of the last four where there's an actual pillow to speak of -- and the fact that he hasn't managed it yet is only the latest in a very long list of hassles that he just can't seem to get the better of, though not for want of trying. Downright depressing, that is, if he lets himself think on it all at once. And in his cramped and chilly little annex room at Etta's, dark and windowless and barely big enough for the bed he's not sleeping on here in the wee small hours between way too late, when they got in, and way too early when he knows he's gotta get up and start his day, thinking's just about all he's got left. Which is a shame, really, because right now (whenever the hell now is, anyway), thinking's just about the last thing on earth he wants to do.

Butch Cassidy up and admitting that he doesn't want to think. Well if that just don't beat all.

Thinking is what Butch does best. Everybody says so, though whether they're paying a compliment or dishing an insult tends to vary from speaker to speaker and then from moment to moment, besides. Like with Etta it was a compliment when he figured out how to fix the winch on the well so she wouldn't have to pay the Johnson boy to come out and replace it, but then again it was an insult up in San Fran when she'd tried (and failed, _spectacularly_) to take him shopping. And while the Kid's always first in line to slap his back in merry congrats each and every time one of his crazy off the wall ideas nets them twice the windfall of their last old-fashioned robbery, since everyone always complains that he makes their good old-fashioned robberies so gosh darn _complicated_ all the time it's still an insult as often as not.

"_You know what your problem is, Butch? You think too much_."

Hell, the Kid can even make the words sound like an omen, if he's of a mind, and damn if that doesn't just rankle a bit. Oh sure, the Kid can generally be counted on to know exactly when and where to voice his opinion -- only fair, given that Butch always knows when and where those opinions just might matter for more than the breath they rode in on -- and no one would ever say that the Kid doesn't have his talents, or at least no one who wants to live long enough to spread the word. But then just because the Kid can shoot -- can _out_-shoot, anyone and anything, anytime and anyplace -- that hardly makes his word as true or as final as his gun hand, but damned if the Kid doesn't seem to think so, anyway.

"_Less thinking, Butch. More doing_."

Now, the Kid doesn't get angry often. Frustrated and ill-tempered and more ornery than a pack of mules -- hell yes and then twice again on Sundays -- but real and honest anger is just about as rare for him as real and honest honesty in their general line of work, and anyone who thinks they wouldn't know the difference is either deaf or dumb or blind -- or out of earshot whenever he decides its time to remind Butch to step down from the clouds and _watch his own damn ass_ now and then, before his greatest asset turns right around and bites him on it. Sound advice, usually, and normally he wouldn't object to being on the receiving end of it, but a timely warning here and there is altogether different from a condescended rant, which is exactly what the Kid's been giving him, in one form or another, for almost the entirety of those four rotten days of too little sleep over too many miles. Sure he likes the Kid well enough (man's all but family -- better than, really), but _Christ Almighty_! If he wanted fire and brimstone he go rob a preacher. Hired guns with Messianic complexes don't count, no matter the surprisingly impressive extent of their vocabulary.

"_C'mon, Butch, let's go. You can think about it later_."

Of course, the way he's lying around not-sleeping isn't exactly helping his argument any. But maybe here in the cool and dark of Etta's annex, sometime after all the good little boys have drifted off to sleep but before all the lucky ones can be bothered to just yet, he can put aside the righteous indignation -- weren't for him the Kid would still be a two-bit gunslinger (if not even a _dead_ two-bit gunslinger, but there are the thoughts you don't like to think on and then there are the thoughts you shove so far down that they only see the light of day after you've already thought your way through everything else on top of them first) and _there but for the grace of God_ \-- to face the fact that, just because the Kid's driven him right on through distraction and then out the other side, that doesn't mean (whisper it quietly) that there isn't some truth to the words after all.

Maybe he really _does_ think too much.

Alone and exhausted and too pissed off about it to even bother with dissembling, Butch found he could admit it to himself, at least if not at last. After all, if there's ever a time when a man shouldn't be thinking it's gotta be when he should be sleeping, but he just can't seem to get the Kid's words out of his head.

"_Butch you gotta stop thinking so much_."

Well, maybe not the _words_, exactly, as words are Butch's stock and trade and those words aren't much different from all the rest. Certainly nothing that he hasn't heard a thousand times before, but for some reason its the words that stick in his memory. Not the first time the Kid has said them (not hardly) but the first time for this time, back when they were still just words and not the opening act of some tragic (and insufferably long-winded) opera.

"_Butch you gotta stop thinking so much_."

Back then the Kid had just said them, no rant or rebuke or any other fool thing than a plain statement of fact, and sure the Kid's got a love for stating the blatantly obvious, but on the sliding scale of personality quirks that one's generally more amusing than annoying. And maybe it's because back then they'd been empty of everything else, but those are the words that stuck with him -- those words, that tone, that one look on the Kid's face -- all wide-eyed and rattled and nowhere near down from the post-battle high -- and maybe its because of everything they'd stuck to _first_, like they're the glue that's holding all the pieces together and those pieces somehow fit in like a giant jigsaw puzzle where the picture's his memory and those words are written into every seam -- but those are the words that wormed their way in, the words that followed him home.

"_Butch you gotta stop thinking so much_."

And he does. He really, really does.

But ever since the idea'd taken hold of him it hasn't let go, and he's been stuck staring at the backs of his eyelids and the finished picture he's created there: a perfect image cross-cut with a spiderweb of little squiggly lines that echo whenever he blinks enough to notice them, making him think of the Kid when he'd really rather forget him, keeping him awake when he'd really rather be sleeping.

And so he hears the Kid's words as they stick in the air, heavy with dust and horse sweat and gunpowder because -- how the hell else are you supposed to rob a stage? He hears how they stick in his own ears, ringing out over the din of the shots and the screeching of that ugly old crone in widow's dress and wrinkles and the cry of his sweet little bay mare when that idiot wannabe hero shot her out from under him. He hears how they stick in the Kid's throat as he says them, as he spits them through the muffle of the bandanna over his mouth, more angry than he has any real right to be. He hears them every time he shuts his eyes and tries to block the picture from his mind. Tries so very hard to stop thinking about how he well and truly _does_ think too Goddamn much.

And only Butch Cassidy would keep himself up nights thinking about whether or not it was possible to think about not-thinking.

But that's really not what he's thinking about.

Because he's thinking instead about that old crone, and the way she screamed when she'd seen their guns. He's thinking about the driver, who'd simply sighed and stuck up his hands -- past four years or so Butch has robbed him enough that, if the crone hadn't been carrying on like she was, he might have spent the time his boys were pawing through the passenger bags by asking after his mother's health and whether or not Junior was walking yet. He's thinking about that sweet little bay mare, no bigger than a pony but fast and smooth and full of heart -- and wouldn't spook for anything. He's thinking about the Kid, sitting tall and proud and bored beside him, enjoying their first easy job in what had to be a month of Sundays.

He's thinking about sitting on the mare and listening to the driver talk the crone down from apoplexy over the clamor of his boys rifling through the valuables and all under the reassuring shadow of the Kid on that ugly bitch chestnut, hands and head and shoulders taller, gun lax and loose and ready.

"_Butch you gotta stop thinking so much_."

And maybe so, but at least he's not thinking about how it all went wrong, because -- hand to God -- he well and truly _doesn't know_. One minute he's sitting on the mare hearing screams and platitudes and the laughter of his boys and the next he's on the ground hearing shouts and gunshots and still that awful, awful screaming. And then its silence and panicky horses and cursing so inventive he was almost sidetracked by the flood of bizarre (and anatomically impossible) imagery and the _silencesilencesilencesilence_ \-- but before he can even think to ask--

There's the Kid's face, dropping into view, "_Butch you gotta stop thinking so much_," and in the intervening days those words would put all other curses straight to shame, but right then it came twitchy and pale, backing a nod and a hand up.

"_Butch you gotta stop thinking so much_," because that's what he'd been doing, sure enough. Safely atop his mare, surrounded by the familiar disarray of a job going mostly-right. He'd been thinking so hard he hadn't even seen the idiot boy, the need-to-be-hero more enthusiastic than bright pull a gun from -- Hell and Damnation, he doesn't have the faintest clue; can't even really _guess_ \-- and the shit of it is he might never have even known at all.

"_Butch you gotta stop thinking so much_," and yeah, alright, he'll give the Kid that one, but damned if he could remember what exactly it was he'd been thinking about. Distressing, really, that he couldn't recall it now, what with how those absent thoughts came frightfully close to being the _very last_ thoughts he'd ever have. If that stupidly heroic bastard had been even _half_ the shot--

But no. That way lies madness, Butch is certain. Madness through sheer lack of sleep.

Because he'd buried his mare (shot in the neck, conveniently located just in front of his own chest), buried the failed hero (Kid had shot him dead and likely before the rapport from that first bullet had finished booming), buried the not-hero's wife (who was a fair sight better with her Derringer than her husband with his Colt and put an ugly crease across the Kid's left arm before Curry put one through her heart). Hell he'd even buried that old crone (whose own heart gave out in all the excitement) and very nearly the driver, too, but the man's got a sick mother and a new wife and a toddler at home and so really had much greater need for the hush money -- in the terms of what would have been Butch's cut of the spoils -- than he did the lead reward for a spontaneous crisis of conscience.

That and his boys are sure to listen whenever the Kid's own smoking gun is waving about for added emphasis.

And in the end he'd ridden away -- without his horse, Goddamnit! -- arms sore from hauling stones and back sore from how he'd landed and head sore from how hard he had to stop himself from thinking -- and a hell of a lot poorer than he should have been, for all of that. But the boys were (mostly) happy and the driver would (probably) keep his mouth shut and--

"_Butch you gotta stop thinking so much_."

\--where the hell did the Kid get off, anyway? Being so damned angry. Wasn't the first time he'd made a passing acquaintance with another man's lead, and he'd earned his keep and kept his horse and got out of all the heavy lifting.

Butch doesn't get it.

At this point, he doesn't really _want_ to get it, either. Just wants it to leave him the heck alone, so that he might be able to finally get some decent sleep.

...Though, judging from the sounds next door, the Kid and Etta aren't exactly sleeping, either. He wonders how long they've been up, if they've ever even gotten to sleep at all (and if it wasn't the loudness of his own thoughts that woke them). The thought almost makes him smile. Almost, except he all over aches too much -- and why the hell would he smile for picturing the Kid with his head pillowed on Etta's breast, quiet and still, her fingers carding through his hair while they slept or not-slept as it suited them?

Why would he smile? For the patient way Etta's silences always seem to coax the Kid out of his natural born reticency? For the way he lets her hold him, the way he seems to welcome her touch, her hands, her lips; her affection, her care, her need of him? Why would he smile for the way the Kid's eyes go all warm and liquid whenever he catches sight of Etta without her knowing? Or how he always stands behind her, warm and steady and solid and _there_, whenever he gives her a shooting lesson? Or the quietly studious way she's been teaching him to write when he hasn't even trusted Butch enough to let on that he didn't know how -- why on earth would he smile for that?

Well, he wouldn't. Of course not. And he's not smiling now.

"_Butch you gotta stop thinking so much_."

_I hear ya, Kid_. _I hear ya_.

But no, actually -- it's not the Kid he's hearing, now. And now he really _would_ smile, because any man what doesn't grin for hearing a woman lost to the throes of pleasure is either dead or--

And Butch certainly isn't dead. Might have come a bit closer than he's exactly comfortable with, a lot more recently than he's _definitely_ comfortable with, but he isn't dead yet and those low throaty moans have him smiling like the Devil's own.

He knows what the Kid's doing, 'cause he's done it himself to women he figures are a lot harder to please, generally speaking, than Etta is, if only through sheer repetition. And its by that reasoning he knows -- that's not a sound a woman makes just to help a man along. No, rather that's the sound she makes when she just can't help it, when she's spread out and open and writhing for touch, when she's clenching her hands and gasping her breaths and praying to God that she's not about to take his name in vain at the top of her lungs.

Butch knows Etta. Knows her rather well, even. Knows her enough to know she must look beyond beautiful whenever she sounds like that, and that seeing it is one of those privileges that he never ever wants to earn, because he knows she'd never have him when she can have the Kid instead and--

"_Butch you gotta stop thinking so much_."

And yeah, okay, he gets it now. Really.

But sometimes, that's not really so bad a thing after all. Like when he hears Etta's moans, hears her and knows women even if he doesn't know her specifically, and so thinks he can picture her, maybe. A little. About as much as he can without violating another one of God's little inconveniences. But then again he knows for certain that the Good Book doesn't say thou shalt not take a woman to bed and run your tongue where angels fear to tread, that it doesn't say you shouldn't cup her breasts or trace your fingers down along her belly or brush your face up against her thigh and breathe in that musky-sweet scent of her.

It _does_ say you shouldn't covet her, of course, but Butch isn't exactly coveting right now.

Maybe because he doesn't exactly have to.

The moans are low and rumbly, broken up by little silences he likes to read as desperate whimpers. The pace is steady, meaning that the Kid is steady, content to leave her strung out wrecked and wanting at the very tips of his fingers. He'll have one inside her, surely, though not in very far. Just enough to tease and then just enough of _that_ to remind her of exactly what she isn't getting. And it might be cruel, to let that kind of play go on too long -- women dry out before they wear out, he (unfortunately) knows, and a woman scorned has nothing on a woman _denied_ \-- and the only reason that it isn't now is because he's got a pretty good idea of what the Kid's thumb is currently up to.

And then -- _oh_! -- that sudden high-pitched little gasp? That's a second finger sliding in to join the first, and now he's hearing speech-like sounds, words too muffled by the wall for him to tell exactly what, but Etta's voice is high and thin, an aching, breathless plea of _want_, and the Kid's answer is lost to something that might be a laugh except for the sudden sob of pleasure that cuts him off.

Etta. God, she must be beautiful.

And the rest was apparently silence. Shame, since Butch's own arousal is currently sitting quite uncomfortably tucked into his long-johns, and that kinda pisses him off a bit because -- if he'd been in the mood for this then he would have done it sooner, rather than waste the however long he's spent thinking himself in circles. If he'd thought for even a minute that one good and thorough go of it would have calmed the squirrel cage enough for him to actually drift off to sleep then he would've thought of Etta _then_, instead of now when he has even less energy than what he'd started out with.

Since there's apparently nothing else for it, Butch takes himself in hand. And much as he wants to curse the Kid for complicating his night he's finally found something that has a decent chance of distracting him, especially with the sweet sounds of Etta's fulfillment still buzzing through his head. And in the newfound silence he remembers everything he thought before -- everything he thought of Etta this last little bit ago -- and he thinks of the Kid busying himself with lips and tongue and fingers and thumb and -- don't they say something about turnabout being fair play?

Of course they do.

And so Butch thinks the silence is silent because the Kid is silent. Taciturn in life, taciturn in bed. Or something like that.

And maybe he isn't _quite_ as silent as he thinks he is. Maybe he hums deep in the back of his throat, too low to carry, and maybe he gasps a bit, or sighs, his breathing knocked all out of rhythm by Etta's lovely, lovely mouth. Etta who sings like a bird and curses like a sailor and teaches the local children their ABCs; Etta with her pert pink lips, her dainty tongue and hot-hot breath, and the throat that makes all those pretty little sounds. Etta who always does her best to give as good as she gets.

And the Kid, silent because he thinks he has to be, probably biting down on his lower lip to make sure of it. Means he's breathing hard through his nose, face flushed, pupils blown as he stares down at her, as his hands find their way to her head, his fingers to and through her hair. The Kid, swallowing thickly, holding back, holding it in. And Etta thinking its a game, Etta wanting to see if her mouth can trump his silence.

Then suddenly a loudish thump, and the peal of feminine laughter. A grumble. A surly voice forming words Butch can't distinguish. He doesn't know what happened -- can't think (_can't think_!) beyond the press of his own need, uncurling fast below his belly, and the splay of his own fingers, trying to hold it off as long as possible, trying to make sure that when he goes he's gone for good and Goodnight, Charlie -- but whatever it was he knows it means the Kid hasn't finished yet, and sure enough its only a small handful of eternities before he hears their bed crashing back into the wall.

A hard and steady rapping -- _thud thud thud_ \-- racing in tune with the pulse pounding in his ears, drowning out all else -- and it means the Kid's in charge, going on how the sound is coming from high up in the headboard (because when Etta's in the saddle its just the mattress that kicks around, the momentum jouncing up and down instead of rocking back and forth).

If either of them are making noise their bed is ten times louder, but he likes to think the Kid is grunting. Has to be, what with how hard it sounds like he's chasing his own pleasure -- not surprising given that the last attempt was interrupted -- and it's an open-mouthed hard-breathing _pant_, formless and guttural, words trailing off far behind along with thought and care and consideration -- because he's out racing for the edge so hard he can only intend to pitch himself over it.

And Etta, with the Kid bearing her down into their downy mattress, it'd be all she can do to simply hold on. She'll be pressing herself up and curling herself in, open and willing and ready to catch him as he goes.

Butch listens as the rhythm builds, his own hand stroking strong and sure and right in step with them. He listens and he wonders if there's any _lagniappe_ for Etta tonight -- he likes to think there is, even if he can't hear it -- wonders what the Kid thinks about as he buries himself inside her again and again and again, if indeed he can think of anything at all beyond the all-consuming need for release. Wonders--

(_Oh_!)

He's finished before them.

Butch sags into his crappy straw-lined mattress, spent and messy and not even caring as it sticks him in odd places while the Kid finally finishes up. And he thinks -- lagniappe, had to be, 'cause why else would the Kid hold out?

And he thinks he might be covetous after all, but he already knows just what the Kid would say to that.

"_Butch you gotta stop thinking so much_."

Of course he does. Of course he should. Of course--

He falls asleep.

_Hallelujah_, he falls asleep at last.

\--**--**--

  


"Think it worked?"

Etta, curled up at his side, head on his chest and staring up at him in lazy contentment -- and the first words out of her mouth are all about Butch. If that's not the story of his life, he doesn't know what is.

But it's a fair question.

He takes a moment to think about it, holds his breath and listens _hard_\--

"Yep." Butch snores to wake the dead the best of nights. Putting a wall between them at least makes it bearable. And lets him know that Butch isn't the only one who can think their way out of a mess.

Etta sighs and snuggles in, squeezing him tighter for a bit before relaxing. "What are we going to do with him?"

Another fair question. Probably why he doesn't mind her asking. Or at least, why he wouldn't mind if it was the sort of question that had any kind of easy answer. Butch was always the answer man, not him. Not unless the answers could be found at the end of the quickest draw.

"Wish I knew," he answers anyway, mostly because he's still half basking in the glow of his own satisfaction. That and how its no less than the truth.

And truth was, Butch had been running long on thought and short on sleep ever since that not-quite-disaster of a robbery. Day of, he didn't hold it against him -- man comes as close to dying as Butch did, he's earned the right to inventory his own head for a bit -- or at least he didn't _much_, but then his arm was screaming louder than the devil's angry stepmother and by the end he was pretty much holding _breathing_ against anyone and anything that reminded him of why.

And Butch's hovering like a hen with one chick didn't exactly help things much.

Second day he'd tried to back off a bit, leave Butch to stew in peace so long as that peace was contagious, but then again that might have been the fever, and while he isn't quite sure just what he might've said right smack dab there in the middle of it, he _does_ know that most of it involved thoroughly vilifying Butch's mother. Whatever it was though, it couldn't have been too terrible since it hadn't managed to convince Butch to leave him be.

Third day he'd felt a whole lot better and, from the look of things, Butch had felt a whole lot worse, so again he'd kept his peace. But as they rode on in blissful silence, Butch sitting awkwardly on the back of his saddle and his hands grabbing on every which way like he'd suddenly forgotten how to ride double, he'd discovered what had to be just about the _creepiest_ thing on God's green earth -- and that it took the form of a silent Butch Cassidy.

Butch was _never_ silent. Not when he slept, not when he ate, not even when he was practicing his supposed stealth. Butch snored, Butch chewed, Butch talked and sang and hummed and scuffed his feet but he was never, ever silent.

Not unless he was unconscious.

And seeing how that was really _not_ a thought he felt like entertaining all the way home he'd tried his level best _do something_ about it.

Of course that had gone down just about as badly as he'd figured it would -- man was more stubborn than the _rising tide_ \-- but then he couldn't not try, not when he sometimes still has nightmares about the _last_ time Butch was balanced haphazard and silent behind him as he rode hellbent for leather. Not when he'd seen Butch _drop_, sudden and graceless and in a fountain of blood -- never mind that he'd been fine, if dazed, and that the blood hadn't even been his. He'd been watching the driver, hadn't seen the boy pull his gun until it was too late. Hadn't seen the girl pull _her_ gun at all because he'd been too busy seeing Butch lying flat and bloody beside a dead horse and trying to wrap his head around exactly what that could _mean_.

Stage robberies -- _hell_. They should just stick to trains. And banks. And that mayor's house hadn't been too bad. And if Butch could just learn to _focus on the job at hand_, then maybe they'd be alright.

Just because he's mostly made peace with the idea that outlaws are all headed for early graves, that hardly means he's willing to watch Butch think himself over into an _earlier_ one -- but could he convince the man?

Not in this lifetime, apparently. And not for lack of effort.

But words are Butch's weapons of choice, not his. His eloquence lies in bullets, in placing them better and faster than the next man, and sure Butch could shoot, when and if the need arose -- he'd made certain of that himself -- but the man lived and died by his mouth first, his gun second. And so, as Butch would say, they were at an impasse. He couldn't -- _wouldn't_, not for all the tea in China -- shoot Butch, though sometimes a good pistol-whipping seems far more appealing than is likely healthy -- but at the same point, he really doesn't know what else to say that he hasn't said already.

How the hell do you warn a man that he's liable to _think_ himself to death?

Damned if he knew. Damned if Etta knew, either.

Most he can do is knock Butch out of his own head for a bit. Whenever Butch's thoughts stampede out of control he knows he'd be shit at helping to wrangle them all back in -- and Butch would probably slug him if he tried -- but distracting him? That's easier. Sometimes a lot easier than it probably should be, but who's he to look a gift horse in the mouth? Especially with Etta on hand, so very willing and even happy to help.

But then Etta loves Butch, sure as sunrise. Makes him wonder sometimes just why she's bedding him instead. Butch is the one who always remembers to buy her those fancy things she likes, the one who can _say_ all the fancy things that a lady likes to hear. Butch is the one she turns to when she needs an ear, or a shoulder, or a hand. Sometimes he thinks she only turns to _him_ when she needs -- well, one specific part, exactly -- and he can't help but wonder if Butch wouldn't be better at that, too. If Butch wouldn't be better at making her happy.

But for whatever reason he's the one she wants in her bed, and for his part he's more than willing to stay there for as long as she's willing to have him. And if they together can sometimes do Butch a favor -- _well_. Etta would give Butch the moon if she could.

For himself, he's not nearly so ambitious. The moon can stay right where it is so long as Butch can catch a moment's peace. That's all he asks for, really. All that he thinks is his to give.

Right now Butch is snoring like a grizzly with a head cold. Its not much, but he'll take what he can get, and pray that it's good enough to last 'til morning.

"Someone needs to take care of him," Etta breathes out on a sleepy sigh.

_I'm trying_, he thinks. _I'm trying_.

-_fin_-


End file.
